Kyoto

Kyoto wasn't bombed during WWII so many of the old buildings are remained, a nice contrast to Tokyo. We visited a lot of gardens and shrines. The most impacting place was the Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a shrine with a several kilometre long pathway with thousands of orange gates.






We were lucky with the visit to Kyoto. At the same time we spent there it was a famous traditional festival (which also made to say in Uji because the hotels in the city was folly booked or too expensive). There were a lot of people there to watch, in some places it was almost impossible to pass. But the nice polices kept order...

Wearing traditional kimonos is nothing strange in Japan. It's almost a standard outfit in the Japanese women's wardrobe.
The emperors gardens where really beautiful (even if we visited to many...)
To enter an emperor's garden you have to apply at a special office and show your passport. At the guiding there are a Japanese guide describing a lot of things - we foreigner are left to an audio-guide, but our information takes approximately 4 minutes per station but the guide keeps talking for another 10 minutes... The guests are mostly consisting of older Japanese people and some older foreign tourists - not so many in our age.


An old house that has been an inspiration for many western architects (Björk told me).


Kyoto is not just famous for their emperor gardens but also for their geishas. We actually saw one real geisha passing us in the Gion district one evening. We also tried to have a drink in that area, but that was hard. Most of the bars are lounges and you have to be a "member" (at least what they told us when they saw Björk). There where a lot of lounges and a little fancier "sex bars" in that area.Tadao Ando's art garden, next to the botanical garden was really nice. Here his architecture come to it's right. (Strict, inhuman but beautiful if you ask me.)
We had a coffee with Asako, a friend from Konstfack, unfortunately I didn't took a photo of her. But she showed us this super nice and cosy place which Björk and I never would have found on our own.